Sea-ice-snow-air physiochemical interactions

Arctic sea ice mediates the exchange of heat, fluids, and gases between the ocean and the atmosphere, and in doing so plays an important role in global climate. Bromide, one of the constituents of sea water, plays an important role in Polar tropospheric chemistry, and we are interested in how it enters the atmosphere from the sea. In an effort to understand the transport of bromide through sea ice and the snow lying on it, we are studying the stratigraphic variations in chemistry in the sea ice-snow column and the microstructural location of the bromide in the ice and snow. We use ion chromatography, X-ray micro computed tomography (MicroCT), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray microanalysis at Dartmouth, and synchrotron X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (SXFS) at Argonne National Laboratory.

This work is funded by the National Science Foundation through the Antarctic Atmospheres and Oceans Program and the Arctic Natural Sciences Program.